Gameday

Posted: November 27th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 25 Comments »

The Eagles last beat the Patriots in 1999.  The Eagles last beat Bill Belichick in 1991, when he was the head coach of the Browns and Jim McMahon was our injury-riddled QB.  The Eagles have never beaten Tom Brady.  Today could be the final chance to beat Bill and Brady.  The next game will be in 4 years and we don’t know that either guy will still be in place at that point.

I look forward to the challenge.  It felt great last year to beat the Colts and Peyton Manning.  I would love to see us come up with a similar win today.  It won’t erase the Super Bowl loss or anything like that, but it would be nice to see good (Reid) prevail over evil, pure evil (Belichick/Brady).  Hasn’t the world suffered enough at their hands?

All joking aside, it would be great to beat Bill & Brady.  We lost to them in 2003 and 2007, plus the SB after the 2004 season.  This isn’t some heated rivalry but the game does have some meaning.  At the very least, it is critical for us to win and get a step closer to returning to the .500 mark.

No CB Devin McCourty or S Patrick Chung for the Pats today.  No Vick or Maclin for us.  Still waiting for word on Nnamdi.

I think playing with some backups could help us.  That dynamic will bring out the best in the other players a lot of the time.  Guys know that we have to be more careful.  Guys know that good enough isn’t good enough in those situations.  They tend to play with a higher sense of urgency.

I’m curious to see how Vince does.  He was rusty last week, but finished red hot.  He then had a week of practice to build on the fast finish.  Vince should be in good shape and ready to play.   He and Riley Cooper should absolutely be on the same page.  And hopefully Vince now understands how to throw deep to DeSean.

The Pats have a poor secondary and lack athletes in the front seven.  We need to throw the ball and test the Pats, but I also think Shady will be more productive today than he was last week (aside from the final run).  Belichick will have a gameplan built to control Shady.  The question is whether he has the pieces to make the gameplan work.  Shady is brutally hard on defenses that haven’t faced him before because they don’t understand his cutting ability.  Watching it on tape and facing it live are two different things.

Defensively, I’m most curious about how we cover the TEs.  We aren’t going to shut down Gronkowski or Hernandez, but nobody really does.  We need to keep them under control.  I think Nate Allen and Keenan Clayton will be key in matching up.  Both guys are 6’1 or taller and have man cover skills.  Nnamdi could be…if he’s able to play.

The man to watch is Cullen Jenkins.  If he is disruptive up front, we’ve got a very good chance to win this game.  If the Pats keep him bottled up, we could be in for a long day.

Brady isn’t a guy you out-think or scheme against.  You press his receivers and throw off their timing.  You hit him and make him uncomfortable in the pocket.  And you hope he throws a pick or two.

* * * * *

Not a compelling set of 1pm games.  Dallas already played.  Giants are Monday night.  WAS is 4pm.

I’m just flipping around now, waiting for a compelling game to emerge.

25 Comments on “Gameday”

  1. 1 Anonymous said at 1:33 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Kelce vs Vince is going to be a big test for the young fella

  2. 2 PhillyFollower said at 1:36 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    I’m sure some of you may have seen Sheil’s tweet re: Eagles covering TEs, but if not, I’ll post it here:

    “According to @fboutsiders, the #Eagles are No. 1 in the NFL at covering opposing tight ends, allowing just 34.9 YPG. #patriots”

    http://twitter.com/#!/SheilKapadia/status/140794252350328832

    This surprised me. I didn’t think the Eagles were literally the WORST team in the NFL at covering the TE, but I didn’t think they were anywhere close to being the best…

  3. 3 Mac said at 2:03 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Is it safe to say that no one would give Juan any credit for this?

  4. 4 the guy said at 2:30 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Of course. You don’t give the scapegoat any credit.

  5. 5 Anonymous said at 2:50 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Imagine how high we’d be ranked if we had a real DC.

  6. 6 Cliff Hall said at 3:32 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    I wonder what our rank was in previous seasons. This is an incredible stat since it almost always seems like we get burned by TE’s. Maybe that’s just because we often face GOOD tightends: Witten, Cooley (of old), Fred Davis isn’t bad, nor was Kevin Boss.

  7. 7 Kammich said at 1:46 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    I’m not feeling optimistic… in fact, I had little optimism even when we were presumably operating at full strength. I’m usually very “glass half full,” too, but there’s something about the Evil Empire in New England that clouds my visions and visits my nightmares. They’re not a team. They’re a soul-sucking machine of hatred and pain.

    My only optimism comes in the form of our offense vs their defense. As you said, Belichick will no doubt have a plan to bottle up Shady(or at least moderately contain him). But I think our offense has enough firepower, even without Vick or Maclin, to add some wrinkles and exploit that busted up defense for some big plays.

    Here’s to hoping. Fly Eagles Fly.

  8. 8 Anonymous said at 2:02 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    If we play a little better than we did against the Cowboys and Giants, we can beat the Patriots.
    Phil Sheridan wrote a column today about the new-found nasty streak the Birds displayed last week. We need to continue that. But the Pats are on a typical late season roll. Very tough game for us. We can win but we need to play a perfect game, IMHO.

  9. 9 Mac said at 2:04 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Question: How many times during the Reid years have we had a qb play all 16 games?

  10. 10 Anonymous said at 2:11 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    2000
    2008

    I think that’s it. To be fair, 2004 Donnie sat since we were 13-1.

  11. 11 Mac said at 7:01 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Thanks, I was curious… not that it really means anything.

    Not really in the mood to comment in the game section today, though I am considering taking a look.

  12. 12 Anonymous said at 2:57 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Tommy…in your professional opinion, do you think Vic Abriamiri is gone in the offseason…I mean, how many opportunities can one man get?

  13. 13 Kammich said at 3:01 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Its easy for people like Morton to harp on a series of missed draft picks, because we HAVE whiffed on quite a few(as has every other team). But in the case of a guy like Victor, that’s plain old bad luck. The guy couldn’t take a shit without tearing something. And it was never a continual, nagging body part… pecs, wrists, legs, whatever else… Vic just has bad luck.

  14. 14 Anonymous said at 3:42 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Abiamiri has been unlucky with a few injuries, but I am not sure I am willing to give him or the Eagles a pass. He has had opportunities to be productive on the field and so far, he has not lived up to his 2nd round pick. I don’t know that I would say he has been a bad player, but at no point has he shown he can be anything more than a role player, which for a 2nd round pick equates to bust in my opinion.

  15. 15 Anonymous said at 3:42 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    They might bring him to TC, but you cannot count on him for anything.

    If his contract is up, he’s likely done unless he comes back for a 1 yr tryout.

  16. 16 Anonymous said at 3:03 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Nnamdi.

  17. 17 Anonymous said at 3:09 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    I had such high hopes for Vic coming out of college…..I think Melvin Ingram played extremely well last night against Clemson

  18. 18 Keith Petres said at 3:09 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Per ESPN, Nnamdi Asomugha IS active 🙂

    http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7235968/week-12-inactives

  19. 19 Kammich said at 3:19 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    I love Andy Dalton, but the nickname “The Red Rifle” has to go. Every time I hear it, I think of a dog getting an erection.

    I like Bill Simmons’ suggestion of “Shawshank.” Y’know… Andy, Red… it works.

  20. 20 Cliff Hall said at 3:35 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Man, I was really high on Dalton going in to the draft,. I was really hoping we’d pick him in anticipation of shipping Kolb off.

  21. 21 Cliff Hall said at 3:37 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    So it disappoints me how the media has latched on to this “Tebow just wins” thing when you actually have a pretty good QB being a QB and winning games.

  22. 22 Kammich said at 3:22 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Man, the better of my two fantasy teams is getting ravaged by injuries. I lost Schaub, Cassel and Fred Jackson last week… and now I’ve lost Schaub’s replacement, Matt Leinart. Fortunately, I beat everyone else on the waiver wire in picking up Carson Palmer a few weeks ago, and Kyle Orton a few days ago.

    Damn 16-team leagues.

  23. 23 Steve H said at 3:37 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    I was forced to start Deangelo Williams today because Ahmad Bradshaw was out, and he scored 2 td’s, which is twice as many as he has had all year, so lady luck sometimes is on your side. I’m also in the schaub boat, but I had Cutler as my backup and he got hurt too, so I was forced to trade for Cam Newton, which probably puts me on equal footing or better than if I still had Schaub.

  24. 24 Steve H said at 3:46 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    I was going to type up a long post about the Pats but I’m super hungover today so its going to be the cliff notes version.

    This years offensive innovation for them is the hurry up, not that they haven’t run it in the past but this year its absurd how quickly they can run it and several teams have been made to look very silly in the process (Miami and NYJ come to mind). If you’re playing the Patriots and you aren’t ready for and expecting the hurry up to come then I’m just going to assume that you haven’t bothered to study anything about them at all because they are going to use it. Typically they will use it either when their standard offense has bogged down for a few drives, or after they get a first down and have you in favorable personel. Once their hurry up gets rolling it predictably ends in a touchdown, so if I was playing against them and they had my D on its heels I’d just burn a timeout before they got too far down the field, because they absolutely are going to score on you.

    Brady hasn’t been as sharp as he has in the past and his recievers have been dropping lots of catchable balls over the last few weeks, so if there was a year to face him this would be it.

    Additionally their pass protection which is typically sterling has been a little flakier than usual this year, and they’ve had a few injuries along the line also which I’m sure doesn’t help. The most effective way to Blitz the Pats is by bringing lots of guys over the LOS and then sending pressure off the edge, Brady isn’t as good at setting the protection if you’re not tipping your hand on who’s coming. We don’t really do this look like say the Jets or the Steelers do though so I doubt thats what we’ll do.

    Deion Branch has not been very effective this year, and Aaron Hernandez is good but not nearly as good as Gronkowski. If you can limit Welker and Gronkowski then you’re probably setting yourself up for success as the other guys haven’t really shown they can carry the load this year.

    And lastly, I like Castillo and I want him to be successful, but I suspect that today Bellicheck is going to beat him like a rented mule. Go Eagles.

  25. 25 Steve H said at 3:53 PM on November 27th, 2011:

    Heyy check out Indy, the imperfect season might be coming to an end! and as soon as I typed that I saw that Carolina intercepted Painter in the endzone, lol, I jinxed it.